Brands need to tell new types of stories, purpose-inspired stories, and tell them in new ways, via transmedia storytelling. The Storytelling Mandala is designed to help brands tell stories that inspire, organize and energize people to participate and act around a shared purpose. The inner circle consists of a new three-part universal story that articulates the purpose of the brand, the change it wants to catalyze and the quest it has undertaken. The outer circle focuses on the art of transmedia storytelling, including the role of content, the sources of content, the role of channels and the role of paid, owned and earned media. If brands do this, they will inspire, organize and energize people to participate and act around a shared purpose; build permission based owned media assets that will increasingly look like entertainment franchises; and thrive in a world in which media is fragmented, content is cheap, attention is the biggest constraint, but storytelling can still win over hearts and minds. For more, see: http://gauravonomics.com/the-storytelling-mandala-purpose-inspired-transmedia-storytelling/

To learn more about Gaurav/ Gauravonomics, subscribe to gauravonomics.com or follow @gauravonomics on Twitter. !

Gaurav helps organizations rethink purpose and participation, and engage stakeholders through storytelling and crowdsourcing.!!- MBA from IIM Bangalore !- Brand Marketer at Tata Group !- Co-founder of 2020 Social!- Asia Director of Social at MSLGROUP!- Led 50+ workshops with 2000+ marketing and communications professionals across Asia.!!

Gauravnomics writes and talks about minimalism, mythology and movements. Watch out for the upcoming novel on this theme.!!- Award-winning blogger, speaker and changemaker!- The marketer who went off consumption!- 2008-09 Yahoo! Fellow at Georgetown University!- Co-founder of Vote Report India!- 2009 TED India fellow !

Real-life social networking game

Step 1: Passion tags!

On your post-it note, write your name and avatar-name at the top, draw an avatar, and write five passion-tags at the bottom.!

Gaurav Mishra!Gauravonomics!

Wine!Poetry!Storytelling!Design!Innovation!

Step 2: Connections!

Put up the post-it notes on your groups chart paper, then compare your passion-tags with your group members, and draw a line if the tags match. Spend a few minutes reading each others passion tags.!

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Step 3: Conversations!Discuss what conversations might start around these passion-tag connections and how communities might form around these conversations. Then, discuss the similarities between real-life social networks and online social networks.!

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Six truths about social networks

We are all connected!

Photo from untitlism on Flickr!!

Each one of us is connected to everyone else, only through a few degrees of connection.!

Some of us are more connected!

Photo from zitona on Flickr!

Some of us are more connected than others because we have invested more time and effort in building our networks.!

Connections lead to sometimes unexpected conversations around our shared passions, which, in turn, strengthen the connections.!

Conversations lead to community!

Photo from pochacco20 on Flickr!

Public conversations around a passion tag lead to the emergence of an organic community over time.!

Stories are the glue!

Photo from vinothchandar on Flickr!

We move from connections to conversations to communities by sharing stories. As we share these stories, we discover hidden aspects of both ourselves and others. !

Six trends in storytelling

Short attention spans!

Photo from goincase on Flickr!

People are consuming news and entertainment in byte-sized pieces, increasingly on smartphones and tablets, often on-the-go. !

Narrow interest graphs!

Photo from lylevincent on Flickr!

People are selectively paying attention to the topics and sources they are most interested in, and filtering out the rest. !

Social serendipity!

Photo from jodiejaye on Flickr!!

People are discovering new content based on what is shared by their networks, or by other people like them, via sophisticated algorithms. !

Community curation!

Photo from peterhellberg on Flickr!

People are forming on-the-fly communities around a shared passion or purpose by curating content around hashtags and trending topics. !

Remix in context!

Photo from candiedwomanire on Flickr!

People are remixing photos, videos, art and music and sharing their creative work in the context of a time, place or event. !

Emergent storylines!

Photo from xjrlokix on Flickr!

People are curating their own Facebook or Twitter timelines as work-in-progress stories, with emergent narratives. !

From Heros Journey to Heroes to Everyday Heroes

The Heros Journey: Storytelling!

Source: Joseph Campbell Foundation!

Joseph Campbells Heros Journey is a good example of a monomyth, or a universal story, that cuts across all types of stories, including myths, movies, novels, and ads. !

NBC Heroes: Transmedia storytelling!

Source: NBC Heroes Evolutions!

NBCs hit TV series Heroes is a good example of transmedia storytelling, where TV shows, graphic novels, video games, mobile applications, offline experiences and online communities explore different aspects of the same story world. !

Everyday Heroes: Purpose-inspired storytelling !

Source: CNN Heroes!

CNN Heroes (Everyday People Changing the World) is a good example of purpose-inspired storytelling about everyday heroes acting as change agents, with a clear call for participation and action. !

The Storytelling Mandala

The Storytelling Mandala!

The inner circle consists of the types of stories we need to tell. The outer circle focuses on the art of transmedia storytelling. !

1. TYPES OF STORIES!

2. ROLE OF CONTENT!

3. S

OURC

ES O

F CO

NTEN

T! 5. ROLE OF M

EDIA!

4. ROLE OF CHANNELS!

1. Types of stories!

Photos from bast-, alicepopkorn and h-k-d on Flickr !

To inspire, organize and energize people around a shared purpose, we need to tell our story in three parts, in sequence: why (purpose), what (change) and how (quest). !

Why?!Purpose!

What?!Change!

How?!Quest!

1! 3!2!

Why: Purpose!

Photo from bast- on Flickr!

Who are we and what is our purpose, our reason for being? What is our shared purpose, or Social Heartbeat, that can inspire all our stakeholders?!

What: Change!

Photo from alicepopkorn on Flickr !

What is wrong with the world that needs to be changed? What does change mean for individuals, communities and the world?!

How: Quest!

Photo from h-k-d on Flickr !

What happens when we try to catalyze positive change in the world? What is the journey we need to go through to help all our stakeholders win?!

2. Role of content!

Photos from uggboy, danprates and eelssej_ on Flickr !!

To tell our story in a compelling manner, we need to create three types of content, each with a different role: long form tent pole content to pull in people, short-form content pegs to push out stories to people, and ongoing two-way conversations. !

Tent pole content! Content pegs! Conversations!

1! 3!2!

Tent pole content!

Photo from uggboy on Flickr !!

Long-form content like minisites, apps, reports, games or films to showcase the full story in one place and pull in people. !

Content pegs!

Photo from danprates on Flickr !!

Short-form content pegs like blog posts, infographics and video clips to highlight and push out different aspects of the story. !

Conversations!

Photo from eelssej_ on Flickr !!

Ongoing two-way conversations to push out the content pegs and pull in people to the tent pole content. !

Think of a tent!

Photo from alicepopcorn on Flickr!

The content tent pole holds up the tent and attracts people to it. The content pegs hold down the tent and support the content tent pole. The tent needs both the content tent pole and content pegs. !

Think of a movie!

Photo from jdhancock on Flickr!

The movie itself is the content tent pole, while the trailers, interviews, announcements and reviews are content pegs, leading to different types of conversations like buzz, gossip and rumors. !

3. Sources of content!

Photos from aussiegall, xavitalleda and ngmmemuda on Flickr!

We need to recognize that creating content requires time and resources and tap into three sources of content: create original content, crowdsource content, and curate conversations. !